BestValue and the politics of pragmatism

This article frames and highlights critical themes emerging from the contri butions to this BestValue section: that Best Value possesses subtle, and no t so subtle, political, organisational, strategic and governmental dimensio ns. Drawing on these themes we develop our own argument that, during Blair' s first term, BestValue was presented as a potentially enlightened 'user-fr iendly' tool for the expression of diverse social and organisational intere sts. Increasingly, it is emerging as yet another of a long line of retrogra de managerial techniques. The pragmatism of BestValue is becoming more over tly bound up with government centralisation, support for neoliberalism and the private finance initiative.